104 Responses

I did a special vote in Rawene - Hokianga Northland . Loved it . Most of the men were sporting full moko - we were the only ones at the Special votes table "This is the first special I have done dear, I will have to go slowy" it was nice and slow, hell we had time. Heaps of locals coming in to vote and looking over at us , The Specials, the only specials. I felt ... well, special . I also felt a very strong desire to vote for Mana - must be the wairoa up there or something.Then the local hippies cruised in - I noticed the Legalize Marijuana Party on my vote form - my pen hovered ... nah Greens.

All the locals were hanging out have a great catch up - its a remote place and they cleary don't see each other that often and I asked the lovely election worker how much she got paid - $15/hour - her face showed this was the most money she had earned for ages . I reckon if they could turn poverty around in Tai Tokerau by simply have an election every 6 months . I'd especially show up .

Hope while you were in the area you popped in for a wander round Rita and Felix's fabulous Wairere Basalt Boulders Reserve (in the hills behind Horeke)...Check out the 3D(ish) rotatable panoramas on the site - Capture image fans will enjoy these -I'm lichen them, alot...

I asked the lovely election worker how much she got paid – $15/hour – her face showed this was the most money she had earned for ages .

At least two of the very competent poll workers at the booth I scrutineered in were currently unemployed. One had been laid off from Hillside in the latest shameful purge and it was the first paid work she had done for four months. She kept saying how wonderful it was to be working again, even for a day.

On the other hand why not use the Lotto system to vote - just mark your 2 votes on a special Lotto card - scan it in, voila . They seem to get the counting done in like, an hour. And you could win big prizes just for voting, that would pull the punters in.Yes yes huge potential for fraud but some bright spark should be able to figure that out - DNA check maybe. That TV woman with the huge mouth could announce the winners on TV and maybe a lucky voter gets to spin the wheel for the kingmaker party.

And that, children, is the stark truth on how The Birthday Suit Party began, who could foresee that within three years their simple slogan "The Buck-naked Stops Here" would hit a raw nerve with the great unwashed - and those weeds of grime would bare bitter fruit for the clad-handlers when next a ballot was put in the chamber - "we wus robed!" they squealed, but really they'd just out worn their welcome...All Hail the NuDemocracy...

+1 Ian , yes yes The Birthday Suit Party sound like fun ,as does the Christmas Party and the 21st Party. Not a party of, um, naked ambition, has nothing to hid, into solar energy on a personal level, keeps abreast of events, public meetings would be a hoot but they never do them in winter and TVNZ would not invite them to their tedious leaders debates.

Well I had the interesting experience of casting a special at an overseas High Commission. First I had to help un-pack and assemble the booth and then show the staff how to fill in the paperwork. Training appeared to be somewhat absent.

I would if I'd been brought up in the South! As it was, I was raised in ChChCh & Otago, although still reguard Colac Bay one of the family places...)

incidentally, for the 'more info than you really want' department: Southern Kai Tahu dont roll their r's when speaking Maori. But r's have a tendency to turn into l's or d's, and k's migrate into g-dom...

I’d really worry if someone in my whanau was slurring & mispronouncing so much.Makes me think of TIAs , and I'd ask for it to be checked out– but I’m a natural-born pessimist (o, and a female.) Love yourdescription of his speech by the by-

The Southern Maori prounciation were first written down by an interesting character called John Boultbee, an educated sealer. Some of them have lingered – bidibid’ for piripiri- bungi (here on the Coast) for (wheki)punga. But the way the r in Maori sort of slides into d-hood has been a commonplace since people, especially English, started writing the language down…

Voter: *comes out of the booth, walks past the Port Hills boxes, shoves votes in the Chch East boxes*

Me: *head thunks dully into cardboard table*

The exact same thing happened in the polling station where I was scrutineering. It was fascinating to watch. Of the four polling officials only one seemed to have figured out how to prevent this from happening...

Her technique was multi-stepped and went something like this:

1) Very confident voice, made eye contact with voter, had the whole spiel down pat right from the get-go.

2) Carried on doing the talk while she was writing the number on the voting paper, handing this to the voter first while folding the referendum paper (so they could see something else was coming and they should wait for it), meaning that timing-wise she was still holding onto the referendum paper by the time she got to the bit about going behind the screens.

3) Voter stays put and looks obediently towards the screens as she points them out like an air hostess pointing out the emergency exit.

4) Still holding onto the referendum paper but now proffering it to the voter, she finishes her spiel with the bit about the voting boxes at the same time as finally letting go of the paper, does another air-hostess point towards the boxes while they are paying attention to grabbing hold of the referendum - which means that again they look obediently towards where she's pointing before finally shuffling off to vote with an "oh right - thanks..."

Brilliant. Worked every time. I bet she practiced in the front of the mirror for days beforehand :)

My walk around the hall missed the "intro person" 'cos she was txting, I was stopped before I got to the three vacant tables 'cos I looked lost I presume, Handed over the cheat card, the man at the roll voiced my name and address and gave me my four ticks (2 on each vote paper). Wandered to the cardboard desk - why not use them in classrooms? They are sooooo cheap ;-) - picked up the orange marker, tick, tick, tick, tick. Wander to the ballot box, confusion...Rimutaka or ???...leave and pick up snag on way out as donation to school.

The placement of signs is a black art mixed with psycho lolology. Given that a lot of people noticed how "we" got confused with the signs around the polling booths, maybe "we" can now see that plonking a sign anywhere may not be the best place for it. PhDs have spent decades trying to figure out road signage. We see what we want to see, what we expect to see and miss what is sometimes bloody obvious. So those (like Emma) who tried to change the booth around to try and intercept the sight lines of voters were probably performing their first experiments in Signage Psych.101.

And yes, you wonder how stupid some people can be. But it is normal behaviour.